They committed themselves to the teaching of the apostles, the life together, the common meal, and the prayers.
Everyone around was in awe—all those wonders and signs done through the apostles! And all the believers lived in a wonderful harmony, holding everything in common. They sold whatever they owned and pooled their resources so that each person’s need was met.
They followed a daily discipline of worship in the Temple followed by meals at home, every meal a celebration, exuberant and joyful, as they praised God. People in general liked what they saw. Every day their number grew as God added those who were saved.
From Acts 2 in the Messenger paraphrase of the New Testament
Does this description of the life of believers sound familiar? Here’s a reminder of our IHS mission statement:
Incarnation Holy Sacrament Episcopal Church is a welcoming and inclusive family of faith. We worship, celebrate, and serve to strengthen and restore all people to unity with God and each other in Christ.
We worship, just as the first followers followed a daily discipline of worship in the Temple. We celebrate, just as they treated every meal as a celebration, exuberant and joyful. We serve, just as the first Christians made sure every person’s need was met.
In our baptismal covenant we actually pledge to follow this way of living. We promise to, using a different translation of this text, continue in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in the prayers. We recommit to this every time we renew our baptismal covenant.
This program year, our theme is Blessed to be a Blessing: God’s Abundance is Meant for All! The first believers taught us this way of living, blessed to be a blessing. They knew they had received the free grace of the resurrection, and though they were not wealthy, powerful, or influential by the world’s standards, everyone was in awe of what they saw in the Christian community. The Message boils it down to this sweet phrase:
“People in general liked what they saw.”
People in general liked what they saw. That’s quite an aspiration for us at IHS living out our mission statement. Can we say that about our congregation? People in general like what they see.
Of course, the beauty of this paraphrase is the use of irony. This paragraph takes us from awe, wonder, miracles, and people living in a utopia of wonderful harmony, and boils all that down to a stark, simple phrase, “people in general liked what they say saw.” But look at what happens next. Every day their number grew as God added those who were saved.
It’s God that does the saving. It’s God that does the adding. We’re called to live the way of love Jesus has taught us. We’re called to dedicate ourselves to the mission. God will do the saving.
However, God's work doesn't happen in a vacuum. There's a cycle from blessing, to response to blessing, to more blessing. Jesus' students received the gift of the Holy Spirit. In response to that gift, they proclaim the good news and live in the Way of Jesus. What flows from that is God's activity of adding to their number. In the economy of God abundance flows into abundance into more abundance. We might say that as grace upon grace.
Notice how counter-cultural God's economy is compared to the economy of the world. In God's economy, there is no scarcity. In God's economy, abundance is meant for all. In the readings from the Gospel of Mark we'll hear in the remainder of Year B (from now until the start of Advent), Jesus will be teaching this prophetic and counter-cultural message about power, wealth, and prestige.
As we start this new program year at IHS, and we begin thinking about this complex theological theme of Blessed to be a Blessing: God's Abundance is Meant for All, one way we might start focusing in on this theme is to think about all those God will be adding to our number. We can begin now by praying for the people that aren't with us yet that will join us in our community in the months ahead. We can pray for the journey that will lead them to the IHS parish community, and we can ask God to help us prepare to welcome them and create the space for belonging that they will find when they arrive in God's time.
We can also look ahead and outward at how far this blessing is meant to go. It's not a mistake that we say in the theme that God's abundance is meant for all. When we say all we mean "all," as in all of creation. God's resurrection and abundance are for not just the whole human race, or the animal kingdom, or even simply the entire planet Earth, our island home. The New Creation extends to the whole cosmos, all that is. God's mission is meant for all. We can't think on that scale all of the time, but we can get glimpses. We can do things like Blessing the Animals on October 6 that get us thinking about God's blessing for the natural order, and that is a good way to start.
So, as we go into this program year, let's recommit ourselves to the common life and mutuality we see in Acts 2, a way of living that we promite to follow in our baptismal covenant and that we dedicate ourselves to each week in our IHS mission statement. Let’s honestly ask ourselves, do people in general like what they see when they visit our worship, or see us having a church picnic, attend a funeral, or participate at Christmas? And let’s join in praying for those God will bring to our community in the months to come that we have yet to meet.
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